


Bittersweet

by Nyx_Fedra



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Ben Solo gets a garden, Ben Solo is a Mess, F/M, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Miscommunication, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, References to Depression, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-03 06:56:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21175292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyx_Fedra/pseuds/Nyx_Fedra
Summary: He would never be and he knew that. He knew he didn’t belong in the new society that was growing from the ashes of war, just like he could never fit in his mother’s republic when he was little, or in Luke’s Academy, or in Snoke’s First Order.He was just broken, he had always been, and Rey wouldn’t come back for him now that she had all she had ever dreamed of, just like Han and Leia never came back when they left him with Luke.





	Bittersweet

**Author's Note:**

> This story came to be when on the some day [this](https://twitter.com/kylofucker/status/1128219326287245313?s=21) thread by @kylofucker full of post TROS angsts met [this](https://twitter.com/i_amthe_senate/status/1127621897380933637?s=21) thread, also full of angst, by @i_amthe_senate were mixed up on my timeline, giving me all sorts of feelings. I just tried to put into writing their headcanons, and I'm probably not doing them justice.  
As always, English is not my first language, so excuse my mistakes if you can and please, mind the tags!

Rey left after the third trial, and the sight of her walking away was burned into Ben’s mind forever. The pain inside him grew so big it threatened to swallow him whole, but it didn’t hurt like when Chewie shot him, or like when she slashed his face open, it was not even the pain of Palpatine’s spirit crawling inside him. Instead, it was the same kind of pain he had always felt since he was child and Han and Leia argued constantly behind their closed door; it was the same pain that came when other children called him freak, when Luke tried to kill him… it exploded with ferocity when he killed Han, when Rey left him behind on Crait, when his mother died and he was still lightyears away. And so, even if it was a pain that Ben knew intimately - that he had known for all his life - he wasn’t able to describe it, and in that moment it was so strong, he didn’t even know how to deal with it, how to make it stop. Every coping mechanism he had ever developed seemed ridiculously inadequate.

It was better when he could move, when he could do something concrete to atone for his past actions… but now he was stuck in prison even though he had been cleared at every trial, albeit by a very narrow margin. Leia’s memory and Rey were most likely what stood between him and execution. He would have accepted it if that was what the new republic decided, he deserved it after all.

\- -

The first trial was a small affair between him and the still-resistance-yet-to-be-new-new-republic high command shortly after they defeated Palpatine. He had barely been able to stand up straight, because he almost (or maybe he did) died, but he and Rey made it. Given Hux’s coup and the internal civil war created by Palpatine’s faction, he was cleared. He had turned and helped the resistance in the end, and that seemed to be what mattered at the time.

Whatever recovery he thought he was slowly making it was quickly halted by the formation of the new republic since it demanded his head, and not figuratively. He had been ready to die (again, just like when he had begged Rey to kill him the moment he felt Palpatine crawl inside him, slowly taking control of his body), and once again Rey had saved him, her kindness and concern for him a constant surprise. But she was just so kind, a beacon of light and love, and the last thing Ben had wanted to do was to get in her way, to be a burden and a disappointment, a liability, especially given her new role in the republic. Which was why he left after the trial to go on peace-building missions sanctioned by the new senate, where he tried to help, to make amends in some way and use the force and his abilities for good.

It hadn’t been easy. People clearly hated him. They barely spoke to him, or when they did it was to insult him, to spit in his food… he just took it, whatever they threw at him. He _deserved_ it after all, he led the First Order, even if for a short time, he helped Snoke, in a way he enabled Hux... he just took it even when they shoved him to the ground, when they spat in his face or punched him. That kind of pain was always better than the pain he felt inside. It was better than the memory of his father’s face bathed in red light, of the last time he saw his mother, of Luke’s eyes that night at the Academy, or of Rey crying on the bridge of the Supremacy. So he just took it and he tried to not to bother her. Ben tried to keep the bond closed as best as he could. She had a proper life now, on Chandrila with her friends, and the new republic to take care of.

Rey was happy, she wasn’t hungry, she wasn’t alone, and that was enough for Ben. He could take the punches and the hate, it was the unspoken punishment, justice even when the trials cleared him, and he was ready to spend what was left of his life just like that. But people watched him, he was constantly watched as he had been all his life, and one day too many ganged up on him at the same time (on Endor, of all places) and a lifetime of reflexes developed by constant fighting under Snoke meant that the force took over before they could actually kill him, without Ben fully realising what was happening. At the time, it felt almost like one of the outbursts he used to have as a child before Luke thought him to control the force. It resulted in him being dragged to court, another trial, another one of Rey’s sad (and disappointed) looks while he stood judgement covered in bruises.

He was cleared again, but now he would have to be constantly watched, grounded on Naboo in a small cottage away from any big city. It was Rey that accompanied him there with the Falcon. Rose, Poe and Finn along with her, as always. There was nothing left between them of the intimacy they had shared that night on Aach-To. Rey always seemed uncomfortable around him, looking at him when he wasn’t looking, her gaze something he couldn’t decipher now that he couldn’t, and wouldn’t, take advantage of the bond that still existed between them. Perhaps she was trying to decide how much of a problem he was going to be for her, how much kindness she had left for a monster like him.

Once on the ground, Rey looked at her feet, at the peaceful countryside that surrounded the cottage that was to be his prison, and then opened her mouth only to close it again.

‘I… I hope you’ll like it here’ she said in the end.

‘I won’t complain’ he promised.

She nodded, probably relieved that she didn’t have to check on him anymore and wonder what damage he was doing. After all, Ben had discovered that – as if his life up until that point hadn’t proved that enough - he wasn’t really good at anything, not even at atoning for his sins. When she turned her back to him and walked away, what little was left of him seemed to crumble. Ben knew he would never see her again. In her kindness, she let him live, she gave him a beautiful prison on his grandmother’s planet… but he would never _be_ and he knew that. He knew he didn’t belong in the new society that was growing from the ashes of war, just like he could never fit in his mother’s republic when he was little, or in Luke’s Academy, or in Snoke’s First Order.

He was just broken, he had always been, and Rey wouldn’t come back for him now that she had a family and all she had ever dreamed of, just like Han and Leia never came back when they left him with Luke.

The Falcon disappeared into the blue sky and Ben remained behind, alone. A spot of darkness among the fields of green of Naboo.

\- -

There were four guards, and they alternated among themselves morning and afternoon in pairs. So there was Ennis and Lee, and Jox and Roos. They never spoke to him directly unless necessary, they followed him mostly from a distance and talked among themselves for the most part.

After three months, Ben knew them quite well, well enough to know not to openly display his connection with the force in front of them, so he avoided to use the force as much as he could, but that was also because he still didn’t know how to deal with the absence of Palpatine and Snoke’s voice from his mind after a lifetime of whispers. It felt raw, and Ben could barely control himself while he meditated, when a part of him felt severed now that he kept the bond with Rey constantly closed so not to bother her. The pain and darkness he felt inside were familiar, yet new and strong. It was a daily struggle to get himself out of bed and keep his mind occupied on other things, but Ben had plenty to do.

He decided almost immediately to take care of the small garden behind the cottage, but since he had no money to himself and the republic granted him nothing but the bare necessities, it was hard work. It required him to walk and find seeds of plants and flowers (much to the annoyance of his guards), and then hours spent working on planting the seeds, making sure they would grow. Aside from that, the guards themselves kept him occupied.

Ben knew they spat in all his meals, that they cut holes and tears in his clothes when they could get their hands on them (usually when he hang them to dry), and they took care to always get as much mud into the small cottage as they could. Sometimes they used some pretext to tackle him to ground and leave him shackled with his hands behind his back for hours. Sometimes they were in a very bad mood and he could sense it, staying well away, other times he couldn’t avoid them. Just like some days ago, when Roos pushed Ben down the stairs. Ben got up mostly unharmed, a lot of bruises and a twisted ankle, but he just took it. It was his punishment. For choosing Snoke, for leaving Luke, for scaring Han and Leia, for being born, in general. Ennis often remarked aloud how better the galaxy would have been if Ben hadn’t been born, while they collectively all referred to Poe Dameron as the ‘real’ son of Leia Organa and Han Solo. Ben couldn’t blame them, he thought the same, too.

When things started to feel like too much, when he felt like it was hard to breathe, Ben just went outside. He would have walked for hours if he could have, but the last time he did kids from the nearby village threw stones at him, and the guards cuffed him so that they could rest. So he just went to the back garden and knelt down on the earth, taking care of each and every plant, again and again and again. It felt a bit like the long lonely hours he spent at the Academy perfecting his calligraphy until his writing hard hurt. It was a way like another to manage.

There was pain in all of this, he had expected it, just like he had expected Rey to leave, to never come back. Which was why Ben was surprised to see the seeds grow slowly from the earth, just like he had been surprised by Rey reaching out to him not to hurt him but just to _touch_ him, to be close. He was surprised that he could do something right, that something could grow because of his actions, and he found some peace in it, in meditating next to the growing plants, in the routine he created for himself around their needs and Naboo’s mild weather.

When the first flowers bloomed after six months, Ben knew that they were too beautiful for him to keep. They would falter soon, and that kind of beauty belonged to others, not to him. He thought of Rey when he cut the flowers, he wanted to give them to her, but he couldn’t, and she wouldn’t have wanted to hear from him anyway. He was probably just a distant memory for her, like a bad dream she had long ago. He imagined her laughing with Finn, Poe or Rose in front of the Senate building entrance, where so many times he had waited with C3PO for his mother. In his mind, she was always a beacon of light, of hope, her eyes shining while she was surrounded by people who adored her…

It was a good idea to cut the flowers, Ben realised, he couldn’t stand to see them die, even if it was just the course of things. It was better if he gave them away now, so that they could be enjoyed by someone else. Someone who could _really_ enjoy them. The more time he spent alone the more he began to think of himself as less real, somewhat. He was always in his head, always alone… he was feeling more and yet less, and what he missed he stopped to seek. There was no point in doing anything beside the necessary, for what point was there if he was alone? A broken thing like him, a ghost of someone not yet dead but who deserved to be…

‘You can give them to the people of the village when you go back tonight’ Ben told Lee, a question more than a demand.

Lee looked at the fresh flowers in his hands, the way he was holding them to avoid the thorns even though he had wrapped them with care. Ennis was bound to be back from the village with his dinner every moment now, but Lee seemed to look for him anyway. Then something changed in his eyes, Ben felt the shift of his mood in the force, and Lee took the flowers abruptly, leaving long and thin bloody lines on Ben’s hand.

‘Thank you’ he answered looking down at his hands, his mind beginning to spiral down a path Ben knew well. For a moment, he was on Starkiller again, his father right in front of him, and he was barely able to control himself.

_‘Run away!’_ he had wanted to scream _‘You old fool!’_. But Han called him, and with Snoke watching Ben was left with no choice.

No, that was a lie he told himself. He had a choice and he choose Snoke, which was why Luke had tried to kill him, to prevent exactly what had happened, Snoke rising and Han and Leia dying.

Ben walked back inside the cottage slowly, and even more slowly he began to wash his hands before Ennis could come back. He focused on his breath, on the force signature of the life that surrounded him… everything to get out of his own mind. He was tired, and dirty, and there was nothing that would have helped him in that moment like a bath, but he had learned months ago never to be that vulnerable when his guards were around. They would just take the opportunity to find more ways to humiliate him after stealing his clothes, pointing at his numerous scars, his horrendous features… he deserved it, and he knew he was big and repulsive, but he was too tired to let them play with him even in those occasions. There had been a time after Crait, when he and Rey started to work together against Palpatine, when Ben had felt the same excitement and lust he had felt only once before as a teenager at the Academy. Shamefully, he had thought of him and Rey, even touched himself after years of not doing so for fear of being discovered and shamed by Snoke… but Jox and Roos mocking his appearance and his apparently disgusting dick made clear to him that Rey could have never liked him that way, an ugly, scarred creature like him. She was just kind, it was her nature. She had suffered, but unlike him she remained strong, positive, kind. Which was why she deserved to be happy, and he deserved to be locked up and forgotten.

The guards never remained the night, a small privilege once it was understood that he would not try to escape, and that was when he let himself be vulnerable. Some nights Ben talked to himself, and it was mostly insults directed at himself when he remember all the mistakes of the past. Other nights he spent awake going around the small cottage, cleaning until his mind was blank or he was exhausted enough to fall asleep. Some nights he just cried in his pillow for hours. The tears came easily once he permitted himself to think about his daily reality, the loneliness and the hate that surrounded him; the kids throwing stones at him and laughing, the people of the village suddenly going quiet when he arrived, the stares full of hate and the punches in small alleys while his guards looked the other way. Some nights he remember how his mother had felt in the force, her presence a steady point, calling for him to go home, missing him, and dying just before he could.

Maybe it had been better that way. She would have been ashamed, disappointed by him once again, angry, just like she had been when it was revealed in the old Senate that Vader was her real father. She had kept that secret hidden just like she had tried to hide him away with Luke. What she had longed for was the boy he had never been able to be, the smiling kid troubled but not really. A lovable rascal like Poe had been as a child, when he used to show Ben around Yavin 4 while his parents and the Dameron’s talked.

It was those nights that were the most difficult, when the temptation to reopen the bond was greater. The pain was so unbearable, Ben would have given everything to make it stop. More and more he began to think about making his guards angry, so angry they would _really_ hurt him… other times he thought about hurting himself, but he never did. He didn’t want to be once again a bother for Rey. He could give her that, tranquillity. It would have been selfish of him to make himself a problem for her once again. So he kept the bond shut no matter how much he wanted to know how she was, and he cried and muffled his screams in the pillow until another night was gone, and then he did it again, and again.

Ennis came back with his dinner from the village, and he and Lee didn’t bother to hide when they spat in Ben’s portion of rice. It wasn’t good rice to begin with, it was scraps, but when Ben saw Lee add a fistful of soil to it he knew he wouldn’t eat that night. The only consolation was that he still had the flowers, and they walked away with them after giving the bowl of dirt and rice to Ben with a smirk. It didn’t happen often that they went to these extremes, so Ben just accepted it. He had no right to complain anyway. Thankfully, he felt tired enough to fall asleep without having a further breakdown, but he woke up in the early morning with a headache and a weird smell lingering on the back of his throat.

There was a discomfort in the force around him, a vein of darkness in one of the rare days on Naboo where the sky was covered in clouds. Ben walked down the stairs carefully, his left ankle still a bit stiff since he was pushed and fell down those very stairs not so long ago, and still barefoot he made for the garden.

When he opened the door, he was met with a sight he had grown familiar with, just for once not of his own making: there was no more garden, only blacked and burned remains of the few plants that had been there before he arrived, and a patch of dust where he had carefully planted seeds and watched them grow. Someone had ravaged all around the exterior of the cottage, breaking every instrument, every single thing Ben had left outside. He wondered how he could have missed it, how could he just sleep though it… but he recognised that to sleep through it had been, possibly, the only favour his broken mind ever did to him.

The flowers he had given Lee the evening before were all broken into pieces, scattered over the ashes like small drops of colour. This wasn’t just his guards, this was the village, the galaxy, once again, reminding him of his place, of who he _really_ was, what he could never escape, what he could never ask forgiveness for.

Jox and Roos were laughing not far away, mocking his sad expression. The anger was fleeting in him, once it would have been a hurricane of fire, but not anymore.

There was no place for him, not even far way, no matter what Rey in her kindness had thought was right. Ben still didn’t want to bother her. He had promised he wouldn’t complain, and even if the pain was so strong his vision was clouded and he couldn’t breathe, maybe he could just… disappear in it. Ben walked back in silently, and then he silently went back to the small bed that could barely contain his frame.

He was unlovable, and so was his every action, everything he did. He was just a disappointment, a burden. Ben closed his eyes and thought of all that could have been avoided if he had never woken up that night when Luke raised his saber on him. He tried to cut himself off from the force, just like Luke had done in his exile, but the force resisted him, entrenched inside him, in his every fibre despite his best efforts.

Once again, it was not enough, he was not enough.

\- -

Sometimes Rey stayed awake all night. She waited for that flicker, that tingle that would precede the bond connecting them… but it never came. With impatience she had tried to follow the string that connected her to Ben, but only to find a wall at his end, even though sometimes it felt as if the wall was inside her, splitting her in half.

She was good at waiting, she had waited for so long, and after the (final) fall of Palpatine she had seen how much Ben was struggling with himself, trying to make amends, and she… understood that maybe he needed time to process what had happened, being possessed, dying in her arms and breaking her heart for good only for a second before breathing again… She understood, but she was so worried for him, all of the time. She wanted nothing more than being close to him, to hold him, but she had to stop herself from being too familiar with him. Never, never in her life, not even with Finn and Rose she had been so carefree with her touch as she was with Ben (as she would have been if she didn’t control herself). People didn’t understand him, _them_, the force. They didn’t know what the dark side meant, the influence the force could have on an individual. But she knew, and Ben knew.

She missed training with him, sparring with him, meditating with him or listening to Ben reading the Jedi texts to her since she knew the language poorly. That had all been before Palpatine… it was in the aftermath that she had to distance herself, leave him space to breathe. She did, and people almost punched him to death while she was systems away, finding out only when he was put on trial again, making her anxiety and fear spike so high that Poe had to fly the Falcon because she couldn’t stop her hands from shaking. Rey couldn’t understand how he just took it. Yes, he was watched, and if someone saw even a hint of possible bad behaviour they were ready to claim he needed to be punished with death and she just… she couldn’t lose him. And she missed him. So much.

It broke her heart to leave him on Naboo alone, in a small desolate house while surrounded by guards… it didn’t feel fair, right, after all he’d been through. He had fought for his redemption, suffered enough, and now he deserved to be happy. She also wanted to be selfish, she wanted to be with him. Rey just _wanted_ him, and yet she decided to leave him space, for him to come back to her on his own terms. The only one who seemed to understand her feelings was Rose, of course, but Rey couldn’t talk freely with her, nor with Finn or Poe or Kaydel, Jannah, or Zorri, or anyone, really. There were things inside her, thoughts, that only Ben could understand. For others, they would have been weird, without sense, maybe dangerous. It was why some nights she faltered and she tried to reach for him through the bond, especially on night she felt loneliness cut her like a sharp knife. She was always surrounded by people in Chandrila, but no one really knew her, no really cared, no one really understood… not like Ben. The small period they spent together before they fought Palpatine and while they trained remained the best of Rey’s life so far. She had never felt as happy and as understood as she had been then. She missed him, she missed his small smiles and his dark warm eyes, his voice that never failed to make her insides go warm…

There were times it verged on the painful, the way the bond between them was kept artificially closed by him. Those were the nights Rey cried herself to sleep, because maybe she had misread the situation, maybe Ben never cared for her… she was a scrawny thing, a desert rat, she wasn’t as beautiful as Jannah, her body wasn’t as full as Rose’s, with lovely curves. Not even her parents loved her, and while she had friends, she had Finn, Rose and Poe… she still longed for him, for Ben and the warmth and love she thought she had seen in his eyes sometimes on Pasaana, when he looked at her during their training.

But things weren’t easy. Even if he opened the bond again, Rey was afraid, because the new republic boasted to be built on equality and fairness, and outlawed capital punishment for ever crime, yet they had insisted on wanting to kill Ben. They wanted to hurt him mercilessly, as if he hadn’t turned like thousands of other First Order officers that had been pardoned yet punished with civil service. Ben had died to help them in the end, and Rey still didn’t know how she managed to bring him back. He had suffered enough, he had done enough. They could be happy now, but the republic had insisted on not one but three trials that had been a mockery, his fate already decided until she spoke up and shamed the jury for their double standards when it came to Ben. She still didn’t know how she did it, how she didn’t give in to the dark side, because she had wanted to, she had never been as tempted as she had been when she arrived on Endor for the third trial. Rey had landed with Poe, Finn and Rose a little bit late since they were working at the senate in Chandrila, and they had found a jury completely biased against Ben. The whole trial was a farce, the attackers claiming to have been assaulted by him while it was clear that Ben just… took it, the punches, the kicks, everything. Rey’s heart stopped when she saw him, his face bruised and swollen, in his eyes the expression of someone who was ready to die, just like he had been ready to die to defeat Palpatine.

She still had nightmares of that day, of Palpatine possessing Ben’s body, taking away his autonomy just like Snoke had done more subtly years before, of Ben screaming in pain. He had tried to stay still, he had begged her to kill him, to kill Palpatine for good and free the galaxy. In her worst nightmares, she did it, his saber cutting through him just like it did for Han, her grip tight on the handle while he thanked her for freeing him. In her nightmares, he never woke up afterwards, and she was alone again, a part of her forever severed. It took her hours to calm down from those nightmares, for her to remember that he was alive albeit far away from her. What had really happened was that Ben had seen her hesitation, he understood her pain, as always, and once again he had taken it upon himself to do it, no matter how much it hurt him.

_’It’s okay, it’ll be okay’_ he had said, a small smile on his lips just for her before he pointed Anakin’s saber to his chest and ignited it. She had screamed, she had reached for him, and for some reason she couldn’t understand, her hands became pure light for a moment, and then Ben woke up again, confused and tired, but _alive_.

It had been six months since she left him on Naboo, since she last spoke with him, and the distance between them, the silence, was now becoming increasingly painful. She just wanted to be with him, even if it was selfish. It made her restless not knowing how he was, if he was okay, if he was doing better. It was too much… maybe she could go and see him. The force seemed to agree with her, it always felt barely balanced when they were apart, while it hummed contently when they were together. It was a matter of balance, as Luke’s ghost had said to her long ago, but it was also just _them_.

She was trying to prepare herself to tell the others that she was going to see him. Because she was always met by weird stares when she did so. Finn, Poe and Rose appreciated what Ben had done, but they still didn’t like him. She seemed to be the only one in the galaxy who liked him, and it was one of those little things that broke her heart. More than once she had heard senators wonder why he was allowed to live, and it had made her question the senate and its members. Rey didn’t like any of them particularly, she didn’t belong, she didn’t understand the intricacies of politics the way Poe did. What she cared about were the orphans, the children who were starving, and with Rose she did all she could to make sure they were taken care of across the galaxy while Finn managed the Stormtroopers’ rehabilitation programs.

It was Poe who intercepted her that morning, and she was about to tell him that she had decided to go to Naboo when he spoke of Ben before she could.

‘Apparently he is sick or something’ he said absentmindedly, while giving her the documents she and Rose needed on the orphans of Tatooine. ‘He’s always creating problems’ Poe muttered to himself, shuffling the papers in his hands and looking for the one he had to give her.

But Rey didn’t care. She was tired of the hate, she was tired of being away from him. She just wanted to be happy like everyone else seemed to be since the end of the war, yet no one understood that she could never be truly happy without Ben. She left the papers in her hand fall to the ground, and she walked away from Poe, towards the hangar and the Falcon.

\- -

The village where Ben was basically imprisoned wasn’t very big, so Rey parked the Falcon far away. A part of her was afraid that, if he had seen her come, he would have… rejected her. It was an irrational fear, for Ben had always welcomed her, he had never openly rejected her. She had rejected him, after Starkiller, after Crait, and she had good reasons, but she had always… longed for him. After he turned, she felt more awkward with him than she had ever been before, when hate and mistrust made things easier, because there was the real possibility of a _them_, of _together_, or maybe it was a dream of hers, maybe he never liked her like _that_. She thought about him like _that_, his big hands, his broad chest, his plush lips… it made her feel warm inside, but it also made her afraid, afraid that he could reject her, leave her.

She arrived around noon, and when she walked into the village she saw one of the guards with a local street food vendor getting what was to be Ben’s lunch. The guard, Lee, if she remembered correctly, straightened immediately when he saw her.

'Is this his lunch?’ she asked.

'Oh, ah... yes, yes, it is’ Lee answered, suddenly a bit awkward.

'I will take it to him’

'Oh, uhm, no, I can...’

'You’re dismissed, I will take it to him’ she repeated, her voice harder than she intended, but she was impatient. She wanted to see Ben and she didn’t want to have guards around.

Lee just nodded and awkwardly walked away, leaving her alone with the street vendor, a young man with greasy long blond hair.

'You take it to him?’ the men asked, and Rey nodded.

‘It’s the worst rice I had’ the men added, ‘all broken and almost gone bad. People like him don't deserve to waste food. Cannot believe our beloved Padme was his grandmother’ he said before spitting on the rice.

Rey was shocked, so shocked she couldn't speak or move for a moment. The man seemed to see this, and he rushed to explain.

'We always do it, me and the guards’ guys, you know who he is. He doesn't get our food. We don't even want to see him, if he comes around people throw stones at him, especially the children’

Rey tried to keep her anger and her sadness in check, and slowly she extended her hand to take the rice bowl from him. It looked disgusting, the rice a mix of brown, black and white that looked sickening. She had eaten better rations on Jakku, and the republic _payed_ this man to feed Ben.

'Have a good day!’ The men shouted when she walked away, completely oblivious about what she felt inside.

The moment she was on the outskirts of the village, Rey did something she had never done before in her life. She threw away the bowl, rice and all. She would never have Ben eat something so disgusting, there was abundance now that the war was over, and Naboo was a fertile planet and...

With anger prompting her, Rey began to walk faster towards the small cottage. The other guard, Ennis, was sitting outside reading something on his datapad, but her gaze was immediately drawn to the patch of black earth near the house. She remembered there was a garden there, when she first came here with Ben, and now it was burned.

Was it Ben who burned it? It felt unlikely... the reports on him were always so short, they just stated ‘good behaviour’, nothing more, and she knew he hadn't had one of his fits of rage in years. The rage stopped after he killed Snoke, he became... sadder, in a way. And she had his saber, she always kept it with her, a piece of him, his healed crystal mirroring his redemption. Rey was embarrassed to admit even to herself that she had fallen asleep more times that she could count hugging his saber to her chest, wishing for him to come back.

'What happened?’ She asked.

Ennis was startled by her abrupt question, he sat up immediately and he began to explain to her about Ben and his garden. He was laughing at Ben, mocking him, Rey could feel it in the force and in his tone of voice. Ennis told her how ‘stupid’ Ben had been, giving his flowers away, and how some people from the village came during the night some weeks ago to burn it all down. To teach him a lesson.

'He just stays inside now, always in his bed or something’ he finished dismissively.

The mockery, the contempt, Rey could feel it all in him. He hated Ben and she wonder if the guards had helped the villagers burn his garden. What else had they done to him? Why didn’t Ben tell her about it?

Rey felt hot, burning anger towards them, but also at herself. She left him alone even when she knew that he would just stay still if others wanted to hurt him, because he thought he deserved it even when he didn’t. And he didn't deserve it, he atoned, he was forgiven... yet she left him alone with strangers. What did they do to him? Why couldn't she feel him in the force? Was he hurt?

'Leave’ she said to the guard while she tried to control her panic. She didn't even realise that she had used what Luke had called a Jedi mind trick, and Ennis walked away immediately, his eyes empty for a moment, but she didn't have time to feel bad about it.

The cottage inside was dirty, there was mud on the floor, and Rey knew it was the guards’ doing. Those footprints were too small to be Ben’s. The stairs squeaked with her every step, the wood looking old and unstable. There were some dark marks at the bottom that looked like dried blood, but Rey kept going, she choose to ignore it and not let her panic grow further.

The door to the bedroom was wide open, and Rey finally saw him. He was curled up in a bed that looked far too small for him, just one small thin pillow and a blanket that had seen better days that could barely cover his entire frame. He was facing the door, his eyes closed, but he didn't look serene, he didn't look like he was resting, he looked like he was in pain. There were dark bags under his eyes, a scruffy beard covering his chin, and he looked thinner than she had ever seen him.

There were tears in her eyes before she realise it.

'Ben’ she murmured walking into the room, praying he would open his eyes, that her nightmares wouldn't come true.

He seemed to wake up slowly, and it took some time for his eyes to focus clearly on her.

'I’m sorry...’ he said, his voice rough, as if it hadn't been used for a long time ‘I... must have slipped... the bond... I will close it, I won’t disturb you anymore’

He closed his eyes again, and tears fell on his cheeks. She could feel him push weakly into the force, but the bond was already closed...

In a moment Rey was kneeling in front of the bed. Her hand on his cheek had him snap his eyes open, he sucked in a breath and began to tremble.

Why was he afraid? Why was he afraid of _her_? What happened?

'Ben, I'm here’ she said drying away his tears with her fingers, and something seemed to break inside him.

The wall that stood between them for months suddenly came down, and it all poured out of him. Rey saw it all, all he had endured, the hate of other and the hate he felt towards himself, the sadness, the pain.

'Ben, Ben, Ben...’ she called for him, crying.

'I’m sorry to bother you’ was all he could murmur while she tried to get on the bed to hold him.

She had no intention of letting go this time. This time, she was going to be selfish, for both of them.

\- - 

It was hard to find food, but she found it anyway. She was angry enough that the guards understood not to come around, and she tried to clean as much as she could of the small cottage while Ben slept. It wasn't a peaceful sleep, she could feel how tired he was through the bond, how he was spiralling, trapped in his mind with self-loathing and all the bad memories from the past. When he woke up, she made sure a warm bath was ready, and she was right next to him, her fingers gently brushing locks of hair away from his face.

He was completely surprised to see her there, that she was _really_ there.

'Hey, c’mon, the bath is ready’ she said softly, unable to stop moving her fingers through his hair, to stop touching him while he looked at her like _that_, as if she was the moon.

'Here’ she said finally building some distance and offering him a glass of water. She had never felt so protective of anyone, only Ben.

He took a slip of water and then he tried to talk, but Rey stopped him before he could. She knew he was going to apologise, she could feel how he thought of himself as a burden, someone she despised, and it made her want to cry because he meant so much to her.

'It's okay, c'mon’ she said taking his hand and leading him to the bathroom.

He was unstable on his feet, he hadn't eaten in days, but he started to shake uncontrollably when she tried to help him undress. Ben seemed to have a panic attack and Rey poked through the bond to understand his fears only to be met with the memory of the humiliating comments the guards had made about his body, about his scars.

She didn't know what to say to make him calm down, she was barely able to control her anger. Rey remembered how he had felt a similar mix of emotions when she told him about her time on Jakku before it all started, before the force had them meet on Takodana.

'They were lying, it's not true! You must know that’ she said in a rush cupping his face with her hands. She let her emotions flow to him through the bond, and slowly he calmed down, he let himself be wrapped in her worry for him, her willingness to help him, _really_ help him. But he was still shaking while she helped him out of his shirt, looking down at his feet and clenching his fists.

'You're not ugly, and you're not a monster, Ben’ she said helping him into the small bathtub. She would have flushed in seeing him naked if the circumstances had been different, but the emotions swirling inside him and the memory of the guards laughing at his body just made her so angry, she just wanted to hold him and repeat to him that it wasn't true until he believed it.

'I'm sorry’ he said again, his voice cracking while she helped him wash his broad back.

'It's okay, I'm here now’ she answered kissing his temple.

She was as much confused and shocked as he was, not only for what had happened to him, but also at the reaction that it ignited in her. She cared for him so much, so much more than she had allowed to admit to herself, and to come here to discovered that he had been abused once again, that he had lost all willingness to fight and he had just let go, that she had misinterpreted all and left him alone precisely when he needed her the most… He had always been there for her, on Aach-To, when they went back to Jakku and she had to confront her past... but she had left him alone after the whole galaxy tried to kill him and call it justice.

Once she had scoffed at his feelings of betrayal after Crait, when he had called her a liar for leaving when she promised he wasn't alone; she had scoffed because he had left her as well, because he made mistakes and still lingered in the dark, but now that he was finally back she had truly broken her promise, she really had left him alone when she knew well how auto-destructive he was, how full he was of self-loathing.

She left him to finish the bath and get dressed by himself while she prepared the food she had found in the village. It had been necessary to say it was for her, because the moment she mentioned Ben they would just give her the worst scraps. But now she had some good rice, vegetables, fruit, some sweets, and even meat.

He appeared at the bottom of the stairs after a while, shaved and clean, the new clothes she had found for him fitting a bit loose because of the lost weight. He was trying really hard to block her out, to keep himself together, and Rey wondered if he hated her this much, if he really wanted her gone... but no, that wasn't it. She had felt if before, when he was too exhausted to keep the wall up between them, he was blaming himself, he didn't want to bother her, he thought she was happy when she was away from him, that she forgot about him... and nothing could be falser than that.

'I'm sorry to have made you come here. I'm okay now, you can go. I won't... be a problem anymore, I promise’ he said. He was trying really hard to look secure and put together, but his clenched hands were shaking.

'Ben, I didn't come here because you're some problem for me to solve. I came here because I missed you, I wanted... to give you time, for you to reach out to me on your own terms, I didn't want to impose. But I did, I really did miss you, and my end of the bond was always open for you’ she said deciding to be sincere and open, to leave no more room for misunderstandings.

Rey moved closer until she could take his hands in hers, unclenching them and linking their fingers together.

'I missed you so much’ he finally said, tears falling down his cheeks ‘but I understand, you're happy away, with other happier people, not broken like me, I understand, you can go’ he added shaking, his defences coming down slowly.

'I'm happier when you're around’ she said moving closer until she could wrap her arms around him and hug him tightly. ‘I have waited for you for so long, Ben. Let’s go home together, please’ she whispered, her face pressed into his warm chest, a small part of her still fearing his rejection.

For the first time since the end of the war, maybe for the first time ever, Rey felt as if she was finally, already, _home_ when Ben responded to her hug by holding her tightly as well.

The next day, Rey wanted Ben to see it. See _her_ while she confronted the guards that had mistreated him for months. She had never been so angry in her whole life and in the end it was Ben who stopped her with a hand on her shoulder when she activated her lightsabre without even realising it, all four guards looking positively terrified of her.

'We're leaving’ she announced in the end, turning towards Ben.

He grimaced.

'I can't, the sentence…’

'I don't care, we are going… um, somewhere!’ she stated before turning back towards the guards ‘and you can tell the republic that if they have a problem with that they can come and say it to my face! If the idea of hurting him or imprisoning him is even hinted at again I will _fight you all!_’

The four men nodded, and then they watched in silence as Rey gave Ben his saber back before they walked away together, hand in hand.


End file.
